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CHAPTER VIII: ON BOARD THE "GEHENNA"

When the Gehenna had passed down the Styx and out through the beautiful Cimmerian Harbor into the broad waters of the ocean, and everything was comparatively safe for a while at least, Sherlock Holmes came down from the bridge, where he had taken his place as the commander of the expedition at the moment of departure. His brow was furrowed with anxiety, and through his massive forehead his brain could be seen to be throbbing violently, and the corrugations of his gray matter were not pleasant to witness as he tried vainly to squeeze an idea out of them.

"What is the matter?" asked Demosthenes, anxiously. "We are not in any danger, are we?"

"No," replied Holmes. "But I am somewhat puzzled at the bubbles on the surface of the ocean, and the ripples which we passed over an hour or two ago, barely perceptible through the most powerful microscope, indicate to my mind that for some reason at present unknown to me the House-boat has changed her course. Take that bubble floating by. It is the last expiring bit of aerial agitation of the House-boat's wake. Observe whence it comes. Not from the Azores quarter, but as if instead of steering a straight course thither the House-boat had taken a sharp turn to the north-east, and was making for Havre; or, in other words, Paris instead of London seems to have become their destination."

Demosthenes looked at Holmes with blank amazement, and, to keep from stammering out the exclamation of wonder that rose to his lips, he opened his bonbonniere and swallowed a pebble.

"You don't happen to have a cocaine tablet in your box, do you?" queried Holmes.

"No," returned the Greek. "Cocaine makes me flighty and nervous, but these pebbles sort of ballast me and hold me down. How on earth do you know that that bubble comes from the wake of the House-boat?"

"By my chemical knowledge, merely," replied Holmes. "A merely worldly vessel leaves a phosphorescent bubble in its wake. That one we have just discovered is not so, but sulphurescent, if I may coin a word which it seems to me the English language is very much in need of. It proves, then, that the bubble is a portion of the wake of a Stygian craft, and the only Stygian craft that has cleared the Cimmerian Harbor for years is the House-boat—Q. E. D."

"We can go back until we find the ripple again, and follow that, I presume," sneered Le Coq, who did not take much stock in the theories of his great rival, largely because he was a detective by intuition rather than by study of the science.

"You can if you want to, but it is better not to," rejoined Holmes, simply, as though not observing the sneer, "because the ripple represents the outer lines of the angle of disturbance in the water; and as any one of the sides to an angle is greater than the perpendicular from the hypothenuse to the apex, you'd merely be going the long way. This is especially important when you consider the formation of the bow of the House-boat, which is rounded like the stern of most vessels, and comes near to making a pair of ripples at an angle of ninety degrees."

"Then," observed Sir Walter, with a sigh of disappointment, "we must change our course and sail for Paris?"

"I am afraid so," said Holmes; "but of course it's by no means certain as yet. I think if Columbus would go up into the mizzentop and look about him, he might discover something either in confirmation or refutation of the theory."

"He couldn't discover anything," put in Pinzon. "He never did."

"Well, I like that!" retorted Columbus. "I'd like to know who discovered America."

"So should I," observed Leif Ericson, with a wink at Vespucci.

"Tut!" retorted Columbus. "I did it, and the world knows it, whether you claim it or not."

"Yes, just as Noah discovered Ararat," replied Pinzon. "You sat upon the deck until we ran plumb into an island, after floating about for three months, and then you couldn't tell it from a continent, even when you had it right before your eyes. Noah might just as well have told his family that he discovered a roof garden as for you to go back to Spain telling 'em all that San Salvador was the United States."

"Well, I don't care," said Columbus, with a short laugh. "I'm the one they celebrate, so what's the odds? I'd rather stay down here in the smoking-room enjoying a small game, anyhow, than climb up that mast and strain my eyes for ten or a dozen hours looking for evidence to prove or disprove the correctness of another man's theory. I wouldn't know evidence when I saw it, anyhow. Send Judge Blackstone."

"I draw the line at the mizzentop," observed Blackstone. "The dignity of the bench must and shall be preserved, and I'll never consent to climb up that rigging, getting pitch and paint on my ermine, no matter who asks me to go."

"Whomsoever I tell to go, shall go," put in Holmes, firmly. "I am commander of this ship. It will pay you to remember that, Judge Blackstone."

"And I am the Court of Appeals," retorted Blackstone, hotly. "Bear that in mind, captain, when you try to send me up. I'll issue a writ of habeas corpus on my own body, and commit you for contempt."

"There's no use of sending the Judge, anyhow," said Raleigh, fearing by the glitter that came into the eye of the commander that trouble might ensue unless pacificatory measures were resorted to. "He's accustomed to weighing everything carefully, and cannot be rushed into a decision. If he saw any evidence, he'd have to sit on it a week before reaching a conclusion. What we need here more than anything else is an expert seaman, a lookout, and I nominate Shem. He has sailed under his father, and I have it on good authority that he is a nautical expert."

Holmes hesitated for an instant. He was considering the necessity of disciplining the recalcitrant Blackstone, but he finally yielded.

"Very well," he said. "Shem be it. Bo'sun, pipe Shem on deck, and tell him that general order number one requires him to report at the mizzentop right away, and that immediately he sees anything he shall come below and make it known to me. As for the rest of us, having a very considerable appetite, I do now decree that it is dinner-time. Shall we go below?"

"I don't think I care for any, thank you," said Raleigh. "Fact is— ah—I dined last week, and am not hungry."

Noah laughed. "Oh, come below and watch us eat, then," he said.

"It'll do you good."

But there was no reply. Raleigh had plunged head first into his state-room, which fortunately happened to be on the upper deck. The rest of the spirits repaired below to the saloon, where they were soon engaged in an animated discussion of such viands as the larder provided.

"This," said Dr. Johnson, from the head of the table, "is what I call comfort. I don't know that I am so anxious to recover the House- boat, after all."

"Nor I," said Socrates, "with a ship like this to go off cruising on, and with such a larder. Look at the thickness of that puree, Doctor- -"

"Excuse me," said Boswell, faintly, "but I—I've left my note—bub— book upstairs, Doctor, and I'd like to go up and get it."

"Certainly," said Dr. Johnson. "I judge from your color, which is highly suggestive of a modern magazine poster, that it might be well too if you stayed on deck for a little while and made a few entries in your commonplace book."

"Thank you," said Boswell, gratefully. "Shall you say anything clever during dinner, sir? If so, I might be putting it down while I'm up—"

"Get out!" roared the Doctor. "Get up as high as you can—get up with Shem on the mizzentop—"

"Very good, sir," replied Boswell, and he was off.

"You ought to be more lenient with him, Doctor," said Bonaparte; "he means well."

"I know it," observed Johnson; "but he's so very previous. Last winter, at Chaucer's dinner to Burns, I made a speech, which Boswell printed a week before it was delivered, with the words 'laughter' and 'uproarious applause' interspersed through it. It placed me in a false position."

"How did he know what you were going to say?" queried Demosthenes.

"Don't know," replied Johnson. "Kind of mind-reader, I fancy," he added, blushing a trifle. "But, Captain Holmes, what do you deduce from your observation of the wake of the House-boat? If she's going to Paris, why the change?"

"I have two theories," replied the detective.

"Which is always safe," said Le Coq.

"Always; it doubles your chances of success," acquiesced Holmes. "Anyhow, it gives you a choice, which makes it more interesting. The change of her course from Londonward to Parisward proves to me either that Kidd is not satisfied with the extent of the revenge he has already taken, and wishes to ruin you gentlemen financially by turning your wives, daughters, and sisters loose on the Parisian shops, or that the pirates have themselves been overthrown by the ladies, who have decided to prolong their cruise and get some fun out of their misfortune."

"And where else than to Paris would any one in search of pleasure go?" asked Bonaparte.

"I had more fun a few miles outside of Brussels," said Wellington, with a sly wink at Washington.

"Oh, let up on that!" retorted Bonaparte. "It wasn't you beat me at Waterloo. You couldn't have beaten me at a plain ordinary game of old-maid with a stacked pack of cards, much less in the game of war, if you hadn't had the elements with you."

"Tut!" snapped Wellington. "It was clear science laid you out, Boney."

"Taisey-voo!" shouted the irate Corsican. "Clear science be hanged! Wet science was what did it. If it hadn't been for the rain, my little Duke, I should have been in London within a week, my grenadiers would have been camping in your Rue Peekadeely, and the Old Guard all over everywhere else."

"You must have had a gay army, then," laughed Caesar. "What are French soldiers made of, that they can't stand the wet—unshrunk linen or flannel?"

"Bah!" observed Napoleon, shrugging his shoulders and walking a few paces away. "You do not understand the French. The Frenchman is not a pell-mell soldier like you Romans; he is the poet of arms; he does not go in for glory at the expense of his dignity; style, form, is dearer to him than honor, and he has no use for fighting in the wet and coming out of the fight conspicuous as a victor with the curl out of his feathers and his epaulets rusted with the damp. There is no glory in water. But if we had had umbrellas and mackintoshes, as every Englishman who comes to the Continent always has, and a bath- tub for everybody, then would your Waterloo have been different again, and the great democracy of Europe with a Bonaparte for emperor would have been founded for what the Americans call the keeps; and as for your little Great Britain, ha! she would have become the Blackwell's Island of the Greater France."

"You're almost as funny as Punch isn't," drawled Wellington, with an angry gesture at Bonaparte. "You weren't within telephoning distance of victory all day. We simply played with you, my boy. It was a regular game of golf for us. We let you keep up pretty close and win a few holes, but on the home drive we had you beaten in one stroke. Go to, my dear Bonaparte, and stop talking about the flood."

"It's a lucky thing for us that Noah wasn't a Frenchman, eh?" said Frederick the Great. "How that rain would have fazed him if he had been! The human race would have been wiped out."

"Oh, pshaw!" ejaculated Noah, deprecating the unseemliness of the quarrel, and putting his arm affectionately about Bonaparte's shoulder. "When you come down to that, I was French—as French as one could be in those days—and these Gallic subjects of my friend here were, every one of 'em, my lineal descendants, and their hatred of rain was inherited directly from me, their ancestor."

"Are not we English as much your descendants?" queried Wellington, arching his eyebrows.

"You are," said Noah, "but you take after Mrs. Noah more than after me. Water never fazes a woman, and your delight in tubs is an essentially feminine trait. The first thing Mrs. Noah carried aboard was a laundry outfit, and then she went back for rugs and coats and all sorts of hand-baggage. Gad, it makes me laugh to this day when I think of it! She looked for all the world like an Englishman travelling on the Continent as she walked up the gang-plank behind the elephants, each elephant with a Gladstone bag in his trunk and a hat-box tied to his tail." Here the venerable old weather-prophet winked at Munchausen, and the little quarrel which had been imminent passed off in a general laugh.

"Where's Boswell? He ought to get that anecdote," said Johnson.

"I've locked him up in the library," said Holmes. "He's in charge of the log, and as I have a pretty good general idea as to what is about to happen, I have mapped out a skeleton of the plot and set him to work writing it up." Here the detective gave a sudden start, placed his hand to his ear, listened intently for an instant, and, taking out his watch and glancing at it, added, quietly, "In three minutes Shem will be in here to announce a discovery, and one of great importance, I judge, from the squeak."

The assemblage gazed earnestly at Holmes for a moment.

"The squeak?" queried Raleigh.

"Precisely," said Holmes. "The squeak is what I said, and as I always say what I mean, it follows logically that I meant what I said."

"I heard no squeak," observed Dr. Johnson; "and, furthermore, I fail to see how a squeak, if I had heard it, would have portended a discovery of importance."

"It would not—to you," said Holmes; "but with me it is different. My hearing is unusually acute. I can hear the dropping of a pin through a stone wall ten feet thick; any sound within a mile of my eardrum vibrates thereon with an intensity which would surprise you, and it is by the use of cocaine that I have acquired this wonderfully acute sense. A property which dulls the senses of most people renders mine doubly apprehensive; therefore, gentlemen, while to you there was no auricular disturbance, to me there was. I heard Shem sliding down the mast a minute since. The fact that he slid down the mast instead of climbing down the rigging showed that he was in great haste, therefore he must have something to communicate of great importance."

"Why isn't he here already, then? It wouldn't take him two minutes to get from the deck here," asked the ever-auspicious Le Coq.

"It is simple," returned Holmes, calmly. "If you will go yourself and slide down that mast you will see. Shem has stopped for a little witch-hazel to soothe his burns. It is no cool matter sliding down a mast two hundred feet in height."

As Sherlock Holmes spoke the door burst open and Shem rushed in.

"A signal of distress, captain!" he cried.

"From what quarter—to larboard?" asked Holmes.

"No," returned Shem, breathless.

"Then it must be dead ahead," said Holmes.

"Why not to starboard?" asked Le Coq, dryly.

"Because," answered Holmes, confidently, "it never happens so. If you had ever read a truly exciting sea-tale, my dear Le Coq, you would have known that interesting things, and particularly signals of distress, are never seen except to larboard or dead ahead."

A murmur of applause greeted this retort, and Le Coq subsided.

"The nature of the signal?" demanded Holmes.

"A black flag, skull and cross-bones down, at half-mast!" cried Shem, "and on a rock-bound coast!"

"They're marooned, by heavens!" shouted Holmes, springing to his feet and rushing to the deck, where he was joined immediately by Sir Walter, Dr. Johnson, Bonaparte, and the others.

"Isn't he a daisy?" whispered Demosthenes to Diogenes as they climbed the stairs.

"He is more than that; he's a blooming orchid," said Diogenes, with intense enthusiasm. "I think I'll get my X-ray lantern and see if he's honest."

CHAPTER IX: CAPTAIN KIDD MEETS WITH AN OBSTACLE

"Excuse me, your Majesty," remarked Helen of Troy as Cleopatra accorded permission to Captain Kidd to speak, "I have not been introduced to this gentleman nor has he been presented to me, and I really cannot consent to any proceeding so irregular as this. I do not speak to gentlemen I have not met, nor do I permit them to address me."

"Hear, hear!" cried Xanthippe. "I quite agree with the principle of my young friend from Troy. It may be that when we claimed for ourselves all the rights of men that the right to speak and be spoken to by other men without an introduction will included in the list, but I for one have no desire to avail myself of the privilege, especially when it's a horrid-looking man like this."

Kidd bowed politely, and smiled so terribly that several of the ladies fainted.

"I will withdraw," he said, turning to Cleopatra; and it must be said that his suggestion was prompted by his heartfelt wish, for now that he found himself thus conspicuously brought before so many women, with falsehood on his lips, his courage began to ooze.

"Not yet, please," answered the chairlady. "I imagine we can get about this difficulty without much trouble."

"I think it a perfectly proper objection too," observed Delilah, rising. "If we ever needed etiquette we need it now. But I have a plan which will obviate any further difficulty. If there is no one among us who is sufficiently well acquainted with the gentleman to present him formally to us, I will for the time being take upon myself the office of ship's barber and cut his hair. I understand that it is quite the proper thing for barbers to talk, while cutting their hair, to persons to whom they have not been introduced. And, besides, he really needs a hair-cut badly. Thus I shall establish an acquaintance with the captain, after which I can with propriety introduce him to the rest of you."

"Perhaps the gentleman himself might object to that," put in Queen Elizabeth. "If I remember rightly, your last customer was very much dissatisfied with the trim you gave him."

"It will be unnecessary to do what Delilah proposes," said Mrs. Noah, with a kindly smile, as she rose up from the corner in which she had been sitting, an interested listener. "I can introduce the gentleman to you all with perfect propriety. He's a member of my family. His grandfather was the great-grandson a thousand and eight times removed of my son Shem's great-grandnephew on his father's side. His relationship to me is therefore obvious, though from what I know of his reputation I think he takes more after my husband's ancestors than my own. Willie, dear, these ladies are friends of mine. Ladies, this young man is one of my most famous descendants. He has been a man of many adventures, and he has been hanged once, which, far from making him undesirable as an acquaintance, has served merely to render him harmless, and therefore a safe person to know. Now, my son, go ahead and speak your piece."

The good old spirit sat down, and the scruples of the objectors having thus been satisfied, Captain Kidd began.

"Now that I know you all," he remarked, as pleasantly as he could under the circumstances, "I feel that I can speak more freely, and certainly with a great deal less embarrassment than if I were addressing a gathering of entire strangers. I am not much of a hand at speaking, and have always felt somewhat nonplussed at finding myself in a position of this nature. In my whole career I never experienced but one irresistible impulse to make a public address of any length, and that was upon that unhappy occasion to which the greatest and grandest of my great-grandmothers has alluded, and that only as the chain by which I was suspended in mid-air tightened about my vocal chords. At that moment I could have talked impromptu for a year, so fast and numerously did thoughts of the uttermost import surge upward into my brain; but circumstances over which I had no control prevented the utterance of those thoughts, and that speech is therefore lost to the world."

"He has the gift of continuity," observed Madame Recamier.

"Ought to be in the United States Senate," smiled Elizabeth.

"I wish I could make up my mind as to whether he is outrageously handsome or desperately ugly," remarked Helen of Troy. "He fascinates me, but whether it is the fascination of liking or of horror I can't tell, and it's quite important."

"Ladies," resumed the captain, his uneasiness increasing as he came to the point, "I am but the agent of your respective husbands, fiances, and other masculine guardians. The gentlemen who were previously the tenants of this club-house have delegated to me the important, and I may add highly agreeable, task of showing you the world. They have noted of late years the growth of that feeling of unrest which is becoming every day more and more conspicuous in feminine circles in all parts of the universe—on the earth, where women are clamoring to vote, and to be allowed to go out late at night without an escort, in Hades, where, as you are no doubt aware, the management of the government has fallen almost wholly into the hands of the Furies; and even in the halls of Jupiter himself, where, I am credibly informed, Juno has been taking private lessons in the art of hurling thunderbolts—information which the extraordinary quality of recent electrical storms on the earth would seem to confirm. Thunderbolts of late years have been cast hither and yon in a most erratic fashion, striking where they were least expected, as those of you who keep in touch with the outer world must be fully aware. Now, actuated by their usual broad and liberal motives, the men of Hades wish to meet the views of you ladies to just that extent that your views are based upon a wise selection, in turn based upon experience, and they have come to me and in so many words have said, 'Mr. Kidd, we wish the women of Hades to see the world. We want them to be satisfied. We do not like this constantly increasing spirit of unrest. We, who have seen all the life that we care to see, do not ourselves feel equal to the task of showing them about. We will pay you liberally if you will take our House-boat, which they have always been anxious to enter, and personally conduct our beloved ones to Paris, London, and elsewhere. Let them see as much of life as they can stand. Accord them every privilege. Spare no expense; only bring them back again to us safe and sound.' These were their words, ladies. I asked them why they didn't come along themselves, saying that even if they were tired of it all, they should make some personal sacrifice to your comfort; and they answered, reasonably and well, that they would be only too glad to do so, but that they feared they might unconsciously seem to exert a repressing influence upon you. 'We want them to feel absolutely free, Captain Kidd,' said they, 'and if we are along they may not feel so.' The answer was convincing, ladies, and I accepted the commission."

"But we knew nothing of all this," interposed Elizabeth. "The subject was not broached to us by our husbands, brothers, fiances, or fathers. My brother, Sir Walter Raleigh—"

Cleopatra chuckled. "Brother! Brother's good," she said.

"Well, that's what he is," retorted Elizabeth, quickly. "I promised to be a sister to him, and I'm going to keep my word. That's the kind of a queen I am. I was about to remark," Elizabeth added, turning to the captain, "that my brother, Sir Walter Raleigh, never even hinted at any such plan, and usually he asked my advice in matters of so great importance."

"That is easily accounted for, madame," retorted Kidd. "Sir Walter intended this as a little surprise for you, that is all. The arrangements were all placed in his hands, and it was he who bound us all to secrecy. None of the ladies were to be informed of it."

"It does not sound altogether plausible," interposed Portia. "If you ladies do not object, I should like to cross-examine this—ah— gentleman."

Kidd paled visibly. He was not prepared for any such trial; however, he put as good a face on the matter as he could, and announced his willingness to answer any questions that he might be asked.

"Shall we put him under oath?" asked Cleopatra.

"As you please, ladies," said the pirate. "A pirate's word is as good as his bond; but I'll take an oath if you choose—a half-dozen of 'em, if need be."

"I fancy we can get along without that," said Portia. "Now, Captain Kidd, who first proposed this plan?"

"Socrates," said Kidd, unblushingly with a sly glance at Xanthippe.

"What?" cried Xanthippe. "My husband propose anything that would contribute to my pleasure or intellectual advancement? Bah! Your story is transparently false at the outset."

"Nevertheless," said Kidd, "the scheme was proposed by Socrates. He said a trip of that kind for Xanthippe would be very restful and health-giving."

"For me?" cried Xanthippe, sceptically.

"No, madame, for him," retorted Kidd.

"Ah—ho-ho! That's the way of it, eh?" said Xanthippe, flushing to the roots of her hair. "Very likely. You—ah—you will excuse my doubting your word, Captain Kidd, a moment since. I withdraw my remark, and in order to make fullest reparation, I beg to assure these ladies that I am now perfectly convinced that you are telling the truth. That last observation is just like my husband, and when I get back home again, if I ever do, well—ha, ha!—we'll have a merry time, that's all."

"And what was—ah—Bassanio's connection with this affair?" added Portia, hesitatingly.

"He was not informed of it," said Kidd, archly. "I am not acquainted with Bassanio, my lady, but I overheard Sir Walter enjoining upon the others the absolute necessity of keeping the whole affair from Bassanio, because he was afraid he would not consent to it. 'Bassanio has a most beautiful wife, gentlemen,' said Sir Walter, 'and he wouldn't think of parting with her under any circumstances; therefore let us keep our intentions a secret from him.' I did not hear whom the gentleman married, madame; but the others, Prince Hamlet, the Duke of Buckingham, and Louis the Fourteenth, all agreed that Mrs. Bassanio was too beautiful a person to be separated from, and that it was better, therefore, to keep Bassanio in the dark as to their little enterprise until it was too late for him to interfere."

A pink glow of pleasure suffused the lovely countenance of the cross- examiner, and it did not require a very sharp eye to see that the wily Kidd had completely won her over to his side. On the other hand, Elizabeth's brow became as corrugated as her ruff, and the spirit of the pirate shivered to the core as he turned and gazed upon that glowering face.

"Sir Walter agreed to that, did he?" snapped Elizabeth. "And yet he was willing to part with—ah—his sister."

"Well, your Majesty," began Kidd, hesitatingly, "you see it was this way: Sir Walter—er—did say that, but—ah—he—ah—but he added that he of course merely judged—er—this man Bassanio's feelings by his own in parting from his sister—"

"Did he say sister?" cried Elizabeth.

"Well—no—not in those words," shuffled Kidd, perceiving quickly wherein his error lay, "but—ah—I jumped at the conclusion, seeing his intense enthusiasm for the lady's beauty and—er—intellectual qualities, that he referred to you, and it is from yourself that I have gained my knowledge as to the fraternal, not to say sororal, relationship that exists between you."

"That man's a diplomat from Diplomaville!" muttered Sir Henry Morgan, who, with Abeuchapeta and Conrad, was listening at the port without.

"He is that," said Abeuchapeta, "but he can't last much longer. He's perspiring like a pitcher of ice-water on a hot day, and a spirit of his size and volatile nature can't stand much of that without evaporating. If you will observe him closely you will see that his left arm already has vanished into thin air."

"By Jove!" whispered Conrad, "that's a fact! If they don't let up on him he'll vanish. He's getting excessively tenuous about the top of his head."

All of which was only too true. Subjected to a scrutiny which he had little expected, the deceitful ambassador of the thieving band was rapidly dissipating, and, as those without had so fearsomely noted, was in imminent danger of complete sublimation, which, in the case of one possessed of so little elementary purity, meant nothing short of annihilation. Fortunately for Kidd, however, his wonderful tact had stemmed the tide of suspicion. Elizabeth was satisfied with his explanation, and in the minds of at least three of the most influential ladies on board, Portia, Xanthippe, and Elizabeth, he had become a creature worthy of credence, which meant that he had nothing more to fear.

"I am prepared, your Majesty," said Elizabeth, addressing Cleopatra, "to accept from this time on the gentleman's word. The little that he has already told us is hall-marked with truth. I should like to ask, however, one more question, and that is how our gentleman friends expected to embark us upon this voyage without letting us into the secret?"

"Oh, as for that," replied Kidd, with a deep-drawn sigh of relief, for he too had noticed the gradual evaporation of his arm and the incipient etherization of his cranium—"as for that, it was simple enough. There was to have been a day set apart for ladies' day at the club, and when you were all on board we were quietly to weigh anchor and start. The fact that you had anticipated the day, of your own volition, was telephoned by my scouts to me at my headquarters, and that news was by me transmitted by messenger to Sir Walter at Charon's Glen Island, where the long-talked-of fight between Samson and Goliath was taking place. Raleigh immediately replied, 'Good! Start at once. Paris first. Unlimited credit. Love to Elizabeth.' Wherefore, ladies," he added, rising from his chair and walking to the door—"wherefore you are here and in my care. Make yourselves comfortable, and with the aid of the fashion papers which you have already received prepare yourselves for the joys that await you. With the aid of Madame Recamier and Baedeker's Paris, which you will find in the library, it will be your own fault if when you arrive there you resemble a great many less fortunate women who don't know what they want."